German biathlete Magdalena Neuner won her last ever World Cup sprint round on Friday in Russia, her eighth win in ten sprint events this season.
Russia’s biathletes disappointed again on home soil, with Dmitry Malyshko the highest-ranked Russian man in 11th and Ekaterina Glazyrina leading the women home in 18th.
Neuner finished in a time of 22 minutes 11.5 seconds, three seconds ahead of Ukraine’s Vita Semerenko in second and 16.2 seconds ahead of Belarusian biathlete Darya Domracheva in third.
The double Olympic champion has now amassed 10 career World Cup wins on the Khanty-Mansiisk course, where she won four world championship gold medals in 2010 and 2011.
France’s Martin Fourcade sealed the World Cup sprint title, continuing his winning form from the world championships to take victory in the World Cup’s most easterly round.
Fourcade finished in 26 minutes 40 seconds, 5.3 seconds faster than Germany’s Arnd Peiffer in second, and 6.7 seconds ahead of Sweden’s Fredrik Lindstrom in third.
Russian biathlete Andrey Makoveev placed fourth in the world championship sprint in Khanty-Mansiisk in 2011, but only managed an 18th-place finish, and said he was surprised by his poor result.
“On the first shoot I had a miss, I still don’t know why. I prepared fine, and the other shots hit the target cleanly,” he said.
“I felt fine, covered the entire distance without any problems. I even had some energy left after the finish.”
Russia’s men wrapped up victory in the Nations Cup, a points-based competition covering various events throughout the year, for the first time since 2007.
